If you have a young daughter, you would do anything to ensure her safety. The FDA has already approved one HPV vaccine, Gardasil, believing that the vaccine could potentially save young women’s lives by preventing cervical cancer. However, some parents have hesitated to give their daughters the vaccine, questioning its safety and effectiveness. Can the HPV vaccine really save lives, or does it pose a high dosage risk?
Founder, Center for Ethical Solutions
Every healthcare authority that has advocated HPV vaccinations always adds that the vaccine should not be seen as a substitute for regular testing, but what if the vaccine lulls young women into a false sense of security? Gardasil protects only against HPV types 16 and 18. It does not protect against more than a dozen other types of HPV responsible for 30 percent of cervical cancers. What if women don’t realize the necessity of regular Pap tests or use the vaccine as an excuse to avoid inconvenient or unpleasant visits to the gynecologist? As a result, some pre-cancerous conditions may go undetected before it's too late.
The New England Journal of Medicine recently reported potentially analogous problems with the chickenpox vaccine -- not only did the incidence of illness among those vaccinated increase over time, so did the severity of the illness itself.
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